I agree with the recommendation of пельмени, which can be roughly compared to meat-filled ravioli or Chinese "pot sticker" dumplings, though in my opinion, they're tastier than either of those! But pelmeni can be intimidating for a first-timer to make totally from scratch -- unless you've got quite a lot of prior experience making and working with homemade pasta dough.

However, I've made pelmeni very successfully using a homemade meat filling and packaged wonton-wrappers from the supermarket (which obviously saves time with making, rolling, and cutting the dough). It'll still probably take you an hour to fill/wrap the dumplings, but you can do this way ahead of time and store them in the freezer. Then, you drop the frozen pelmeni into boiling-hot water (or better yet, chicken or beef bouillon), boil them 7 or 8 minutes, drain, and serve with accompaniments like sour cream, flavored vinegar, melted butter, and chopped dill and/or cilantro. (I studied Russian in college 20 years ago, and when I lived in Moscow 1993-94 as an ESL teacher, I was surprised at how popular cilantro was in Russian cooking... I had only associated it with Mexican food.)

Anyway, If you think you want to try this option, let me know -- somewhere on my computer I already have a recipe for "wonton-wrapper pelmeni" typed up, so I can send it or post it.

Another very, very Russian lunch entree to make would be котлеты -- which are essentially jumbo, oval-shaped meatballs that are rolled in bread crumbs and sauteed in a big skillet so that they are brown, slightly dry, and crusty on the outside, but moist and juicy on the inside. Kotlety recipes often start with a фарш (ground meat mixture) that's half beef and half pork, but of course you can substitute turkey, lamb, veal, chicken, etc. depending on your tastes. And they're often served without any kind of sauce, so that people can add their own condiments (sour cream, mustard, A-1 sauce, etc.) to taste. Of course, котлеты are quite easy to make, so these are a good choice for an entree if you plan to do a fancy, labor-intensive dessert.